Many people confuse the national debt with the deficit. True, they are important budgetary terms. But they are very different concepts: The term “debt” refers to the company balance sheet, while “deficit” is a cash flow concept.

The United States had a bad debt problem going into 2020 – and it got a lot worse.

As of August 2020, the public debt of the United States amounted to more than $26.72 trillion. More than $3 trillion of that debt was larded on since February, thanks to a rapid economic contraction due to the COVID-19 pandemic and substantial stimulus spending as Congress and the Treasury tried to keep the economy from going into a general meltdown.

When markets are perceived to be uncertain, investors look to lower their portfolio risk levels and migrate towards traditional ‘safe-haven’ assets. They do this by selling stocks, lower-rated bonds and other risky assets and shifting money towards other asset classes that have historically held up during times of recession, uncertainty and crisis.